Birkbeck academic nominated for Women’s Rights award

14 February 2017

Nomination recognises important research on “honour”-based violence

Dr Christina Julios, Associate Lecturer in the Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies has been nominated for the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation’s (IKWRO) True Honour Awards 2017 for her research and educational work on ‘honour’-based violence (HBV). The annual awards celebrate inspirational individuals and groups who take a stand against ‘honour’-based violence.

Dr Julios, author of the recent book Forced Marriage and 'Honour' Killings in Britain: Private Lives, Community Crimes and Public Policy Perspectives, has been doing research on HBV over the past five years. Her volume, published in 2015, is the first scholarly book to examine the extent of HBV in the UK, while chronicling contemporary public policy and legislative developments over time. The book provides HBV victims and survivors with a voice by featuring countless individual narratives as well as five key in-depth case-studies of ‘honour’ killings. In 2016, Dr Julios set up and taught the first educational course ever to focus on the UK’s HBV experience. Based at the City Literary Institute (City Lit) in London, the one-day summer course titled 'Honour'-based Violence in Britain: Theory, Policy and Practice provides a comprehensive overview of this phenomenon.

Dr Julios has presented her HBV research at various national academic conferences and public fora including the UN Women, National Committee (2015), the British Sociological Association (BSA) Annual Conference 2016 and the BSA Violence Against Women Study Group (2016). She has also taken part in media and television interviews to raise awareness of HBV issues including SKY News discussing HMIC's The depths of dishonour report (2015) and a Peninsula Television documentary on HBV survivors entitled The Day I Should Have Died (2016).

The winners of this year’s awards will be announced at a ceremony on 7 March.